How a benching and conversations with Nick Nurse helped Kelly Oubre Jr. evolve for Sixers
Kelly Oubre Jr. reinvented his scoring approach on the fly this season. Oubre and Sixers head coach Nick Nurse have been encouraged by the results.
Anyone who spends time around Kelly Oubre Jr. will say the same thing: Oubre, 29, has enormous amounts of pride and confidence. He has the utmost faith that his skills, mentality and on-court style are leading him down the right path. Oubre lives to embrace the doubters and the skeptics; proving them wrong feels like an inevitably to the veteran swingman who is in his second season with the Sixers.
For all of those reasons, Sixers head coach Nick Nurse likely knew he was about to have some uncomfortable conversations. It was the middle of November, and with his team sputtering, Nurse made the decision to remove Oubre from his starting five. Oubre, who cemented himself as a starter in his first year with the organization, has never been shy about the importance that being part of the starting lineup holds to him. But Oubre was just not playing well enough. He found himself unable to score efficiently and was playing out of control far too often.
Convincing Oubre to change the ways he is steadfast in his commitment to would be a challenge for anyone. But Nurse benching him served as a wakeup call for Oubre, and it opened the door for some pivotal discussions.
“Coach also sat me on the bench for a couple games for that perfect reason,” Oubre said when asked about the adjustment. “So I think I learned real quick from that.”
